


The Strike Starts Right Now

by cptlewnixon



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Gen, band of brothers week, bandofbrothersweek, guarnere and babe and dike are mentioned but are not actually major people in the work, newsies au, this is the most dialogue i've ever written in my life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-02-20
Packaged: 2018-09-25 17:02:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9831692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cptlewnixon/pseuds/cptlewnixon
Summary: For Day 1 of "Band of Brothers Week" – a Newsies AU.Liebgott and friends think it's rather unfair of Herbert Sobel to raise the price of papers, so what do they do? They strike.





	

“Sixty cents for a hundred papes? Are you fuckin’ kidding me?” Liebgott exclaimed. He has a fiery personality, as anyone that’s friends with him knows, and the heat inside of him was becoming white hot. They were just trying to make a living, for crying out loud!

Liebgott turned to Webster. “Hey, you wanted in on this life, and now you’ve got it,” Liebgott said, hitting Webster on the back. “Now you’ve gotta deal with Sobel.”

Herbert Sobel was the owner of the papers the boys sold, the _Easy Company Post_. It was huge, somehow, and so was Sobel. He was a well-known and well-recognized and respected figure in the city, and had eyes in every corner of it. His right hand man, Evans, made sure it stayed that way.

Though he was respected, it didn’t necessarily mean he was liked or respected by those that worked under him. In fact, he was hated by all of them. He treated the newsboys like dirt, didn’t buy back the papers that weren’t sold, and was all-in-all just a giant asshole. Anyone that said they liked him was either someone that worked with him, or was a liar.

Sobel had many enemies, including Norman Dike, who inherited his paper. Both papers were popular, and both had a lot in common. For example, they were both incompetent and their workers hated them. White Sobel had an idea of what he was doing, Dike just plain didn’t know, so he did whatever he felt, including jacking up his own prices, too, and treating his employees horribly. He left work early every day, and no one ever knew where he went. It’s not like he actually ran anything, though; his employees did it all themselves.

“Hey Liebgott, what’s the news today?” Joe Toye asked, walking up with Sisk, or “Skinny”, as they liked to call him.

 _So he hadn’t heard from Guarnere in Philly yet,_ Liebgott thought, _where they most certainly raised the price, too._

“Sobel jacked the price up ten cents,” Liebgott said.

“He did _what_?” Luz asked, also approaching, along with Perconte and Grant. Malarkey, Penkala, Shifty, and Muck showed up a few moments later, also questioning what Sobel had done.

“Look at the headline!” Liebgott cried, pointing through the gate. The headline read, _Paper Prices for Newsboys Go Up Ten Cents_. “We’re just trying to feed our families and what’s he do? He jacks up the price and watches us go hungry from that castle of his!”

“Can he really do that?” Shifty asked. “It doesn't seem like he can.”

“He can, and he will, and he did,” Perconte replied bitterly.

“Unbelievable,” Skinny said.

“Morally, he shouldn’t do it,” Malarkey sighed. “But he did.”

They stood there around the gate for a few moments, thinking. They were angry, bitter, upset, dejected, every emotion they could possibly put a name to, they felt. Toye wrung his hands in anger, Luz played with a coin, others rubbed their faces and tried to figure out what the hell they were going to do now. How were they going to feed themselves? How were they going to feed their families? _They wouldn’t be able to now,_ many thought. _We’re gonna starve._

While some thought about that, the gears in Liebgott’s head were turning, slowly at first, but faster every second. He wondered if they could do something, _anything_ , to show Sobel that they weren’t going to stand for this. There was something at the back of Liebgott’s mind, something he saw people do before, something he read about. What was it? He had only seen it yesterday–

“That’s it!” Liebgott cried, straightening up. Everyone turned to look at him.

“What’s it?” Muck asked.

Liebgott turned to face everyone, a smirk on his face and a gleam in his eye. The guys knew this look well: Joe Liebgott had an idea.

“Webster, what did those trolley workers strike for?” Liebgott asked.

“Uh,” Webster furrowed his brow. “Better wages, safer working conditions, better hours. Why do you ask?”

Liebgott motioned with his hands for everyone to gather around, and gather they did.

“Boys, I’ve got an idea,” he said. “Let’s go on strike.”

They were a couple murmurs of protest.

“How will eat?”

“How will we make money?”

“We’ll starve if we do that, Joe.”

Liebgott huffed. “Listen, okay? We won’t be making money, no, _but_ that also means that Sobel won’t be, either. We don’t buy the papes, he doesn’t make the money. He suffers like we do.”

Everyone thought about this for a moment. He _was_ right, and it was how the business worked. If no one worked, the owner wouldn’t get the money. What better way to insult Sobel than refuse to give him the money he desired?

“You’ll need a union if you want to go on strike,” Webster spoke up.

“Then how do we form one?” Penkala asked.

“Well, you need people and a membership,” Webster explained.

Toye motioned to everyone. “What do you call all this then?” he said.

Webster nodded. “Okay, that’s covered. Now you need a president.”

“I nominate Liebgott!” Luz called from the back of the group, and everyone yelled the same.

“You need a problem to strike against, which we clearly have,” Webster commented, looking at the headline board above the newspaper stand. “And you need everyone to agree to the union being formed.”

“If you agree to forming a union, say _aye_ !” Muck yelled. Everyone yelled _aye_ back.

Webster restrained himself from rolling his eyes. “That settles it,” he said. “You now have a union, and you can now strike.”

There was a pause.

“How do we strike?” Shifty asked.

Shifty was a gentle soul, coming to the city from Virginia, of all places. Why he moved, no one really knew, but everyone liked him. He was a good kid.

“It’s easy, Shift,” Luz said, throwing his arm around him. “You do absolutely nothing.”

“I almost forgot,” Webster said. “You need to write something to your employer about why you’re forming a union.”

“Shit, Webster, you’re the smart guy here,” Liebgott said. “Why don’t you write it?”

“You’ve worked for this guy longer than I have!” Webster exclaimed. “What do you want to say?”

Liebgott thought for a moment, everyone waited with baited breath. The gears in his head were turning again as he tried to come up with the right words. He wasn’t always great with them, but when he was…

“Sobel and Dike, they think we’re nothing, but are we nothing?” Liebgott cried.

“No!” was the resounding answer.

“They think they got us, but do they?”

“No!”

“We don’t have hats or badges, but we’re a union just by saying so, aren’t we? Are we gonna stop the wagons? Are we gonna stop the scabbers? Can we do it?” Liebgott yelled, riling everyone up.

“Yeah!”

“The world will know!” Liebgott cried again.

For the rest of the day, the boys stood there, yelling about the strike, hurling insults up at Sobel, not knowing if he could actually see them or not, but they yelled loud enough for him to hear.

Liebgott climbed up to the headline board, ripped the chalk from the hands of the worker there, and wrote “STRIKE” in large letters across the whole thing. The newsies know, Sobel would know, and so would the rest of the world.

* * *

 Sobel looked down at them with disgust from his top floor office. “Just _what_ do they think they’re doing, Evans?”

“Striking, sir,” Evans replied.

Sobel looked at him, shocked. “Striking? What for?”

Evans cleared his throat. “They think your raising the price on the newspapers is unfair, sir.”

“And after all I’ve done for them!” Sobel said, exasperated. “I give them a good job, and tho– those _gutter rats_ are striking.”

He sat down in his chair at his large oak desk, typewriter in front of him, a few pictures of his family on the desk, a phone, papers in different piles, letters in another. “How dare they? How _dare_ they? After all I’ve done, they do– they do _this_!” Sobel was talking to himself in a whisper, ranting and raving about it all. “How do they do it?” he asked aloud.

“I don’t know, sir,” Evans responded.

“I wasn’t talking to you, Evans.”

A beat. “Yessir.”

Sobel picked up the phone on his desk and started dialing. “Have I got some news for you, newsies,” he chuckled, and waited as the line rang.

* * *

Nighttime came, and the gate was locked for the night. A few of the boys left to go sleep wherever they slept at night, but a majority of them slept right in front of the gate. The city was a lot more peaceful at night, a lot quieter. The smell of smoke had subsided, and all the lights were off, leading to an unobstructed view of the night sky above the tall buildings.

“Shooting star,” Shifty commented. “Make a wish.”

A lot of them did. They wished for it all to be over soon so they could just feed their families. Some wished for it to be over soon so no one would get hurt. Sobel had his goons out there in the world, and no one wanted a broken rib or leg or arm. They didn’t have the money to pay for a hospital, but it would make people sympathetic and give them money for a paper. While they wished for different things, they all wished for a better life.

Liebgott wished to be out of here, or better yet, in Santa Fe, the place of his dreams. He had read about it once – he couldn’t remember where, specifically – and that place was all he thought of going nowadays. He was working to eat, and working to get to Santa Fe. Liebgott remembers telling the guys of his plans some months back, and they all thought he was crazy.

“Where you gonna get the money to hop a train to Santa Fe?” Malarkey asked. “You’re going to have to gamble a hell of a lot for it.”

“Or cut a bunch of people’s hair,” Muck added, knowing that Liebgott once dabbled in that field.

“Why do you want to go anyway? Are we not enough for you?” Perconte commented with a laugh.

“It’s just…” Liebgott trailed off, then sighed. He went quiet for a moment before speaking again. “Where does it say you gotta live and die here?”

Though he thought it up on the fly, it was something that Liebgott thought to himself as a way to re-motivate his dream when he was feeling particularly dejected about it. He said it to himself now as he fell asleep, telling himself that the strike was worth it.

Webster leaned against the gate, his arms through it, looking up at Sobel’s office. He just wanted to feed his family, for his dad to heal up and go back to work so he could go back to school. Though he didn’t particularly like the hard work, Webster knew it was necessary to survive, for him as well as others.

But he had a home to go back to at night, a place to forget about it all. He had a family and someone to make food. He had more than these guys ever had, and more they could dream of. In a way, he felt bad.

When the shooting star passed, he too wished for it all to end sooner rather than later. Would this go one for weeks like the trolley strike? Would it last a few days? Would anyone get hurt?

And the most important question that crossed his mind: would anyone have to die for this cause?

Sighing, Webster muttered, “Mr. Sobel, have we got news for you.”

* * *

The night passed quicker than anyone expected. They all woke up to the bell and pulled themselves off the pavement, groaning. Judging from how humid the day was already, they knew it was going to be a hell of a day.

Joe Toye was up before everyone else, calling his friends Babe Heffron and Bill Guarnere in Philly to let them know what was up. Bill had more contacts in New York City than Joe did, oddly enough, and was passing on the information so Bill could give it out to everyone else. Bill said to call after the gates closed that night so he could give Joe some more details and information about what came back to him.

No one slept well, everyone was hungry, and everyone was worried. It’s day two of this whole mess, so now what? Do what they did yesterday? They couldn’t. They had no money, no food or water, and they were all exhausted. Liebgott felt the same way, but he couldn’t let them all see it.

“Are we ready, boys?” Liebgott called to them all. There was little to no reply, mainly murmurs.

He huffed. “Listen, I know we’re all tired and sick of everything already, but it’s only the second day!”

“ _Only_ the second day?” Grant asked. “How long is this going to go on for, Lieb?”

“As long as it takes,” Liebgott responded, and everyone groaned. “It’s important that we all stay in this together and…” He trailed off. He couldn’t find the proper words, and everyone was getting rowdy in the worst possible way.

Liebgott turned to Webster. “A little help here, Mr. Education?” he asked.

“Fine,” Webster said. He moved up to the front where Liebgott was, and tried to get their attention. “Guys, please–“ he’d start, but no one would hear him. No one was listening.

“Carpe diem!” he shouted. Everyone turned to look at him, perplexed.

“Carpe _what_?” Perconte asked.

“Carpe diem, it’s Latin,” Webster elaborated. Everyone rolled their eyes.

“That explains it,” Luz muttered.

“It means ‘seize the day’. Now is the time for it,” Webster said. All eyes were on him. He took a deep breath before continuing.

“We have to stare down the odds and continue on, even if we’re afraid, and we all are, there’s no doubt. But we have to have courage here if we want to win and show Sobel that he’s nothing without us. Courage is us standing up to our fear and going after what we want, even if we are afraid. We’re telling the kings in their tower that we aren’t going to obey their rules!”

Everyone was feeling what Webster was saying, nodding in agreement. Liebgott felt a sense of pride, knowing that he decided to become partners with this kid.

“The strike starts right now!” Webster yelled, and with perfect timing, too. The gates behind him opened up, and everyone surged in, yelling.

Sobel stood up in his office, smirking, knowing full well what he was about to set in motion. He looked down at one of his cronies and nodded, who nodded in response. They blew a whistle, and after that it was chaos.

Strikebreakers came in, as did the police. The boys were not having any of it, and this led to an enormous brawl. Punches were being thrown left and right, bundles of newspapers being flung at heads and guts. The boys on strike and those against the whole ordeal were being punched in the face, beaten, hit in the ribs with police batons, and everything that could be used as a weapon was. Trash cans were tossed in an effort to be creative. Joe Toye brought out his brass knuckles just for the occasion. Even Webster got in on the action. (The trash cans were his idea.)

Shifty, that poor kid. Though he would hunt in Virginia, he’d never actually been in a fight before. He stayed at the side, throwing things back but never getting actively involved. He was, unfortunately, when a cop grabbed him by the neck of his shirt and in a knee-jerk reaction, pulled himself away and punched the cop straight in the nose.

He was taken aback for a moment at what he’d done, but didn’t have time to process it fully before another cop clubbed him in the knee and sent Shifty down to the ground. He was kicked, bruised, and given a hell of beating before he got cuffed and dragged away. The last thing anyone heard was him calling for Liebgott.

“Shifty!” Liebgott called. “We lost Shifty, fuck!”

The protest was over shortly after it even started. The cops went away after Shifty was taken, and the protestors were gone after the cops. The few that remained were battered and tired, and just wanted to leave.

So they did.

Liebgott dodged Webster on his way out, going to the place he typically would when he needed to think. He sat on top of the building for hours, thinking, trying to figure out what to do next, and if he’d continue the strike. Shifty was gone, and everyone’s spirits, like some of their bones, were broken. It just wasn’t worth it anymore.

“Where’s it say you gotta live and die here?!” Liebgott screamed at the stars. He stormed over to where he kept his drawings of Santa Fe, with the drawings of the refuge hidden amongst them. Someday, he thought, this place will be real to me, and not just some drawings on papers. Not just another fantasy.

“Where’s it say you gotta live and die here?” he repeated quietly. He gripped the drawings tight before putting them back where they were, and going to sit on the edge of the building. He laid on his back and looked up the stars, wondering if there’d be another shooting star again tonight. He sighed, and knew that so many of their wishes for it all to be over soon came true. If he got another wish tonight, he’d wish for Shifty to be out and for himself to be gone so he wouldn’t cause any more trouble.

Liebgott was nothing if he didn’t have Santa Fe, and he was nothing if he didn’t have his friends.


End file.
